Favorite Office Moment

Late night last night -- city council meeting went until 1 a.m.
So I am here by myself, considering a nap, and found this online. It's my favorite moment in The Office.

They are doing a safety day and the manager -- the dark haired guy on the roof -- is trying to show that office workers face dangers too, like depression. To make his point, it is going to jump off the roof....



Which reminds me, I have a Mind, Body and Spirit story due next week and I haven't started yet. Guess I know what I am doing tomorrow. :)

"This is about doing, not thinking."

That gets me every time.

pat

Johnson family Christmas delayed

Spend a bunch of money on clothes, toys and food and the most exciting present for Violet?
A 99-cent stuffed blue mermaid -- made in China. Figures. So I will let you guess what I got her for the Johnson Christmas next week.... the green mermaid. :)

There is a headache and flu stuff going around,according to my mother. My dad seems to have caught the creeping crud, so Johnson Christmas (or Zoo Christmas) has been canceled until New Years Day.

Tomorrow, Monday, I am going to have a late night due to a council meeting and story to write the same evening. I am going to love it -- as I always do writing on deadline. I like the daily deadlines but not the stress of the daily grind. A true love/hate relationship there.

Violet and Cindy went to church today, while I stayed home with Lilly. What always happens is that I get Lilly at church and then I take her to the nursery. She is too small to run around by herself, because of the monster 2 year olds running the place. So I try to take her into the little infant room, where, of course, there are 23 breast feeding mothers. I always end up wandering the halls with a sleeping Lilly on my shoulder. Good exercise, but if I'm not going to hear a sermon, I may as well stay home and watch Daystar on TV.

The Marshes came over today after church and that was fun. It's always good seeing Dwight. The guy is getting three master degrees, a couple at the expense of the Federal government -- not a bad gig if you can get it. Today I learned that 1 isn't a prime number. Not sure how I will ever use that information, but now I know.

The last three days I have had a pretty bad headache at the base of my skull. Not sure if it's related to my snow-day spills, or if my pea brain got stuck somewhere back there. :) It gets pretty intense and feels like a migraine, although I never usually get those. I'm pretty sure it isn't sinuses and I am thinking it may be stress related. Not sure what I am stressed about -- good job, great kids, wonderful wife, and bright future. Hmmm.

With any luck I will get busy at work again and it will just fade away. Who knows.

Pat

Merry Christmas!

Well, we had a great Christmas morning. It started with brunch -- I made this potato casserole thing (we call them Fun Potatoes from their original Funeral Potatoes name), I cooked sausage, bacon and made (EDIT -- thanks Melissa!!!) eggs to order. Cindy made fruit salad, cheesecake and this egg bake thing with vegetables in it.

After eating we opened presents -- mostly for the girls -- and had a fun time. Violet is having a hard time learning how to share, but otherwise it was a good morning. Violet got a bunch of dresses and clothes (I will post photos as I get them) and Lilly got very loud toys that I am sure I am going to be turning off or taking batteries out of the minute my in-laws leave. :)

I took some movies and I will post those as I go through them. Probably over the weekend.

Next up, Johnson family Christmas, sometime this weekend.

pat

I need this for my New Year diet

Trapped in a house covered in snow.

Cindy baking.

Bad combination.

I wouldn't be surprised if I weighed as much as my car at this point.

A friend sent this over to me, and this is my new diet plan.

We three kings have traveled so far

Today I went to work. No, not in Wilsonville, in Canby -- they closed the Boone Bridge (the only way to get to my work without a 30+ mile detour) this morning. On Monday they lay out the pages and write last-minute news. So that's what I did, because I figured I wasn't going to make it to Wilsonville this week.

Right now, we have about a foot of snow in the yard, roads and on top of the cars. My day started out by digging out the car. It had about 5 inches of snow, then 1/2 inch of ice and then another 5 inches of snow. The sidewalk I shoveled off yesterday was completely covered with snow again.

So off I went to work, and I get there barely, because the car doesn't have enough clearance and I am like a snow plow. I park and the guy at Canby Pub and Grill yells that I can't park in front of his business (even though it's 2 hour parking). We get into it pretty good, but then I decided that he might complain to my boss' boss, so I moved the car to the back. I will not eat there again, the guy was rude, if he had been cool, no problem, but be a dork, and that's it. I also am telling everyone I know not to eat there, not like the food is that good anyway.

Of course I fell down running errands around downtown Canby. I'm a spazz, I would expect at least one faceplant.

After a few hours of work, and depositing checks and picking up meat from a local butcher, I went out to get back in the car and it was burried again. I was smart and brought a shovel with me. I started digging, tried to move it, got stuck, then dug again. Once I got away from the curb it was fine. I got about halfway home, and I had to stop again because I was stuck. I broke out the shovel again, and sure enough, fell on my face. At least I didn't fall on the shovel.

I get home and make the run up the driveway (very short) and get stuck halfway. Now the trunk is sticking in the sidewalk, but I can't go forward or backward. So we are stranded at home until this snow melts. Well, at least some of it.

Now for my venting. A year and a half ago, Cindy and I were looking at vehicles because we were having Lilly. I wanted an SUV, like a Toyota Highlander or FJ or a Dodge Durango. Four wheel drive for the winter and good safety ratings. When the gas crunch hit this summer, I was glad we got the van -- it gets about 21 mpg and the 4X4s I wanted were around 19. But this week I am regretting getting the van. The van doesn't even have traction control, which sucks. So during this type of weather it's pretty much parked. I suppose we could put chains on it, it's front-wheel drive.

The car we have has traction control, ABS and is pretty good in the snow (when it's not a foot deep on the road).

Anyway, I wish we would have gotten the SUV, but this is a 50-year storm from what they are saying on TV, so who knows.

Well, I should run, Lilly is in a mood.

Dang, after two wipeouts on the ice, I am going to be sore tomorrow. I think it's Tylenol time. What happened to the days of diving into the snow and not even feeling it?

Pat

Snow pictures (with kids inside)

OK, so here are some just random shots around the house. That is the snowman Violet and I built yesterday. I guess Snow Harder! was right. Dude looks cold.

I drove the car yesterday and it had no snow on it. I cleaned it off before I took it out to get supplies.

You know those videos of us playing in the yard yesterday. The top photo is our backyard which doesn't show a hint of the fun we had.

It's snowing pretty hard outside right now. We have about 7 inches of snow, then 1/2 inch of ice on top of that, and now it's snowing again. They are calling for 2-4 inches of snow tonight.

I have work tomorrow. That will be fun.

Pat

Snowman III: Snow harder

Today the A-team went out to build a proper snowman.

Snowman 1 earlier this week, leaned until he almost melted.
Snowman 2 fell backward before I even got home from work on Friday.
Snowman 3, today was build by recycling parts of Snowman 1 and 2, and fortified with additional snow and tonight, freezing rain. He is going to be encased in ice.

We shot this video with our big videocamera because we lost our little one. It's somewhere, but we don't know where.

Anyway, enjoy and we are hoping the power doesn't go out tonight. If it does, we are burning the Christmas tree in the woodstove.

(Don't worry, I bought wood a week ago with fire logs -- don't tell Larry).

Pat

Here is my little snow angel:

Lilly turns 1!!

Today, during the snow storm of the decade, Lilly turned 1.

I'm not sure if that's supposed to be an omen, or what -- she is a active little cuss -- but I like snow, so I really like Lilly.

She gets the joke. The kid always is quick to giggle and laugh, just like me. Even for no reason, sometimes she will just point and giggle. Out of the blue. Kind of like me.

The world needs more happy people, so you are welcome. :)

Today we had chocolate cake, as you can see by the aftermath in the photo, and more pictures are in the slide show.

Violet and I also fixed the snowman, again. The snow today was way too dry to really do much. The plan was to start over, but after trying to make a snowball and having no luck, I determined we should just reduce, reuse and recycle (sorry, too much Bob the Builder lately).

I will put those photos up tomorrow, with a video. Heck, I might do it later tonight, but I want Lilly to have her moment in the sun... it is her birthday today. :)

Pat

I can't stop watching this...

This has been all over the web, and TV, but if you haven't see it here is the story. It's a downtown Portland street where a guy with a video camera left it running for 3 hours and then sped it up. He sent it in the CNN and it's a hit!

Oh and I am trying to figure out Twitter. Anyone know anything about it. I have some people followed (Brett) but beyond that I'm not sure how to use the damn thing.

I feel like an old guy given a cell phone.

'Get off my lawn!'

It's snowing here! We got about an inch since 5 p.m. (it's now 9).

Pat

We are stuck at home!

Hello everyone!

This is Violet and Lilly sitting in front of the Christmas tree Wednesday. We had fun taking those pictures until Lilly got fussy. She didn't want to be held down anymore by her sister. So we have some other shots of Violet, holding a crying little sister.

We have snow, sleet, rain, freezing rain, wind, sunshine and frogs falling from the sky. I am waiting to see if I have to go to work tomorrow, I have a couple of meetings and if they are canceled I will be spending the time at home watching the kids.

Hope all is well with you, and if you are in a freezing climate -- be careful out there.

Pat, Violet and Lilly

PS today is Cindy and mine 13th wedding anniversary -- I only fought once today instead of the normal ultimate fighting cage match... kidding. :)

Meet Mr. Snowman

So a couple of years ago Aunt Sue sent us a snowman kit. Then we didn't get snow. Then we had Lilly and didn't have a chance to play in the snow. This year is different.

Today Cindy and Violet went out and built a snowman. He is leaning pretty bad, but hey, it's her first snowman.

Here is a picture and I put some others up on Flickr.

Hark the herald Violet sings!

Yesterday Violet had her Christmas program at school, where you get a church full of 4-year-olds and their relatives to watch them sing a couple of songs. It was fun, and my mom and dad came out to watch Violet sing. Lilly was pretty fussy on the drive out, so it was nice to get home and get her to bed.

Here is a photo, this week I am pretty fried, I will recover this weekend, so you aren't going to get a lot of commentary here today. :)


Oh if you look at the slideshow I put some o the concert photos on Flickr, along with some random Lilly photos I took on Monday or Tuesday (I can't remember).

Good morning

I promised pictures. Here is one from this morning.

Couple of thougths

Yes I know there haven't been updates lately. I have been busy with work and we were putting together the calendar for this year.

Everyone said with the second child we wouldn't take as many photos as we did with Violet. I call B.S. In fact, I think we took more! So there!

Anyway, we plowed through 12 months of photos and the calendars, and Christmas letters, will be going out shortly. That's you Christmas gift, so I hope I didn't ruin it for you.

Pretty soon and Cindy is on vacation for a couple of weeks, so that will be nice. I am finding a nice pace at work, so things are getting a bit easier. There is a big land use issue going on in Wilsonville that I am following that should wind down mid-December and then I will really be able to plan my work week.

Anyway, lately I have been not playing any video games. Not a one. This is from a self-proclaimed gamer -- and I have been going through withdrawls. No Madden football. No Half-Life 2. No Team Fortress 2. Nothing.

One day I just woke up and realized that I was spending a lot of money for a computer to play video games, when it would be cheaper to buy a gaming system. Only problem, I could convince Cindy (the boss) that a computer was useful and therefor I needed to have one. Gaming system, that's something that can be put off, and put off, and put off.

So when the hard drive died in my desktop computer, gaming stopped for me. I have been reading and whatnot. I can't complain because I have a laptop to do work and surf and e-mail, but it just doesn't have the umph to do games. I guess in the end it is better that I give up my games, but dang, I miss em.

But then came the Guitar Hero ads. That game looks so stinking fun...




Oh and here is the new Ghostbusters game coming out in June.



All I have to say about this gaming hiatus is this: When our house is attacked by aliens, terrorists, or ghosts I am not going to be responsible because I am out of practice using BFGs, MP5s, and proton packs.

That's all.

:)

Calendars should be in the mail this week. Photos of kids will be posted this week too.

Pat